The Great Canadian Towns and Villages Thread

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

In far eastern Ontario there is a correlation between language and the niceness of the place. Anywhere with a substantial francophone population tends to be ugly. Those cute downtowns are only found in places dominated by anglophones.

In Prescott-Russell County which is mostly francophone, the only towns that have attractive downtowns are Russell and Vankleek Hill, which are the most anglophone places.

One thing though - franco-Ontarian small towns have often have absolutely stunning Catholic parish churches. But often it's literally the only building in the town that looks nice.

I tend to agree with you on this but civic officials in francophone areas of far eastern Ontario may have something to say.

Many of the french influenced towns are quite spread out with little central focus (other than a church).

Casselman, Embrun, Hawkesbury, Alfred are not urban gems. On the Quebec side I would say a lot of Hull/Gatineau, Thurso, Masson-Angers, Buckingham isn't great but parts of Chelsea and Aylmer and Wakefield are quite nice which aligns with your statement.

[harls]

I was in Morrisburg in April for the eclipse, and the main drag along the St. Lawrence had some very lovely homes.. I was impressed.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by megadude

Cornwall is not good. Always knew that.

Cornwall is a good example of why location doesn't always matter.

On paper, Cornwall looks amazing: it's just over an hour away from both Montreal and Ottawa, and 2 hours away from the best part of the Adirondack mountains.

But the town is such a dump. It's not even like Brantford where the downtown is depressing but the rest of the city is doing okay, it's a dump through and through.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

I tend to agree with you on this but civic officials in francophone areas of far eastern Ontario may have something to say.

Many of the french influenced towns are quite spread out with little central focus (other than a church).

Casselman, Embrun, Hawkesbury, Alfred are not urban gems. On the Quebec side I would say a lot of Hull/Gatineau, Thurso, Masson-Angers, Buckingham isn't great but parts of Chelsea and Aylmer and Wakefield are quite nice which aligns with your statement.

I definitely agree. Though places like Montebello, St-André-Avellin and Papineauville aren't too bad. Lachute is a bit better than Hawkesbury as well - though both are primarily francophone towns.

The nicer francophone towns in Canada are to the east of us when you get into what I might call "heartland Quebec". We're out on the fringes of that.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

In far eastern Ontario there is a correlation between language and the niceness of the place. Anywhere with a substantial francophone population tends to be ugly. Those cute downtowns are only found in places dominated by anglophones.

what is your theory?

There are plenty of dumpy Ontario cities with nary a francophone. Wallaceburg?

Why is it that so many Quebec cities are highly attractive?

Your correlation is illusory, and not at all borne out by any true statistical data.

Besides, Cornwall is majority English-speaking. Blame the majority for said ugliness.

Cornwall (Ontario) Mother Tongue Language 2016
Number Percent
English 43,240 73.8
French 13,460 23.0
Other languages 3,380 5.8

[Acajack]

Francophones were poorer historically (up until a couple of generations ago in fact) so in general they didn't have nice towns.

In regions where there were more anglophones generally the anglos were the ones with the nicer stuff.

In deeper Quebec there were fewer anglophones so any nicer stuff even if rarer tended to be on the side of the francophones.

[megadude]

Chesterville:

Gotta love murals. Every town should have at least one. Preferably several.

[megadude]

Winchester aka Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa (Mr. Deeds reference):

[megadude]

Kemptville:

[megadude]

Hull and Aylmer in Gatineau

[megadude]

Arnprior. Has the fanciest dollar store I've ever seen.

[megadude]

Renfrew. This might have been the first time I've ever seen a logging truck.

[megadude]

Pakenham:

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I definitely agree. Though places like Montebello, St-André-Avellin and Papineauville aren't too bad. Lachute is a bit better than Hawkesbury as well - though both are primarily francophone towns.

The nicer francophone towns in Canada are to the east of us when you get into what I might call "heartland Quebec". We're out on the fringes of that.

Going back 50 or 60 years, wasn't Lachute pretty evenly split, Anglo/Franco-wise? Although I may have had more relatives that spoke French and never admitted it than I realized.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Going back 50 or 60 years, wasn't Lachute pretty evenly split, Anglo/Franco-wise? Although I may have had more relatives that spoke French and never admitted it than I realized.

My sister and brother in law lived in Lachute for about five years. I thought it a decent town, and convenient to both Montreal and Ottawa

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Going back 50 or 60 years, wasn't Lachute pretty evenly split, Anglo/Franco-wise? Although I may have had more relatives that spoke French and never admitted it than I realized.

Maybe not evenly split that recently, but yes there is or was a historic anglo community there, and in some of the towns around it.

[megadude]

Almonte with the biggest direction sign I've ever seen. Really loved the vibe here with the river. Can't believe they had an excavator on rails constantly picking up the weeds and dropping them over the side. In Merrickville they had two guys doing it manually.

[megadude]

Carleton Place:

[IRT_BMT_IND]

Originally Posted by megadude

Cornwall is not good. Always knew that

It is quite amazing to think that Cornwall actually had a trolleybus system in the past. Its population has been more or less stagnant since the mid-80s, which I guess is not as bad as rust belt style double-digit population decline, but is still really bad given the insane growth in Ontario.

One thing about Cornwall is that while it was not alone in dealing with the effects of deindustrialization, unlike a lot of other places in Ontario there really wasn't a lot of things to fall back on. Cornwall doesn't have things like a university, or (I'm pretty sure) any large scale institutional or public sector employers (like the CRA in Sudbury), and it doesn't really have anything to attract tourists besides maybe stopping for McDonalds or Tim's on trips on the 401 or to the US. It was also too far from the GTA (and important transportation and trade routes in the US) to benefit from any agglomeration effects.

I also believe Cornwall was more connected economically to Montreal than the rest of Ontario (the major employers there like CIL and Domtar were based in Montreal), so a lot of the socioeconomic changes in the 70s and 80s wrt. Quebec's relationship to the rest of Canada probably hurt (I'm saying that Cornwall will never be Montreal's KW despite the similar distance) though I don't know the history here well enough to say anything definitive.

Also, Cornwall was a chemical industry town, and quite nasty chemical manufacturing as well. At one point it was one of the most polluted places in Canada, and there are still huge swathes of land there that are badly contaminated and would likely cost more to remediate properly than they're worth. Cornwall had a reputation as a smokestack town when I was a kid and that kind of reputation sticks.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

what is your theory?

Historical poverty/discrimination in Ontario, I would think.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

There are plenty of dumpy Ontario cities with nary a francophone. Wallaceburg?

Why is it that so many Quebec cities are highly attractive?

That's why I said "far eastern Ontario". It's limited to this area (and to the Outaouais as well, apparently, according to others on this thread) and probably reflects historical socioeconomic stratification. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar correlation with historically English or Scottish communities as opposed to historically Irish communities with the former being a lot "prettier", for much the same reason. (My quick anecdotal observation would suggest this: the Ottawa Valley towns rank a bit lower on the "niceness" scale than the St. Lawrence River towns, and the former were settled by Irish and the latter more by Loyalists & Brits).

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Your correlation is illusory, and not at all borne out by any true statistical data.

I mean, we're talking about "attractive historic architecture". That is a fundamentally subjective thing, you're not going to get statistical data on that.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Besides, Cornwall is majority English-speaking. Blame the majority for said ugliness.

Cornwall (Ontario) Mother Tongue Language 2016
Number Percent
English 43,240 73.8
French 13,460 23.0
Other languages 3,380 5.8

Cornwall is majority anglophone but at 23% the Franco-Ontarian population is significant by Ontario standards. And IIRC, the % used to be much higher, although I don't think Cornwall was ever majority francophone.